CIOs missing out on Asia markets growth opportunities

A survey of global CIOs from large enterprises shows nearly half are investing more in technology to deliver growth and tackle challenges, but many in the West are missing out on opportunities in Asia.

The Enterprise Horizons survey from Expereo – trusted managed networks partner of 30% of Fortune 500 companies – covered Europe, the US and APAC, with each of the 650 CIOs belonging to businesses with annual revenue in excess of US$500 million a year.

CIOs say their global ambitions are restricted by legacy connectivity and management systems, but companies may be missing out by failing to target fast-growing economies due to perceived challenges to entry.

“The biggest businesses across the globe are moving faster to the future,” says Ben Elms, Chief Revenue Officer at Expereo. 

“The business-critical nature of connectivity in today’s world combined with an increasingly complex landscape – from security, regulation, skills and often challenging physical and geo-political infrastructure – means this is no easy task. However, it is achievable. 

“Those that find a way to simplify, automate and scale their operations will be in the best position to reap the rewards and deliver growth.”

Chinese CIOs have the more positive outlook globally, with 45% saying their organisation is optimistic on growth. CIOs in the UK came in at 40%.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tops the list of tech priorities (60%), with security coming second (58%), and automation and analytics third (58%) when it comes to investment in the next four months.

These were followed by 5G (57%), edge computing (55%), SaaS (54%), public and hybrid cloud (52%), and WAN (50%).

CIO perceptions of Asia an obstacle to growth

Many companies may be missing a trick when it comes to tapping into some of the world’s fast-growing markets as they perceive them to be too complicated or challenging.

Asian markets were seen as the most challenging to do business in, which means companies are missing out on the world’s two fastest growing economies in China and India.

“Realising the growth opportunities that global expansion can deliver will be critical to the world economy in these challenging times,” added Elms.

“CIOs need to completely focus on supercharging this strategic growth wherever they are doing business in the world; not grappling with unnecessary logistical and connectivity challenges.”

Expereo is a leading provider of managed network solutions. It powers enterprise and government sites in more than 190 countries, helping customers improve productivity and empowering their networks and cloud services.

Read the full report.